Atheist closet? What atheist closet?

[lonetread]

So, I disovered, a couple days late, 'A' Week on Facebook tonight. And um (impulsively, what) may have joined in. Oh god oh god (hai, irony!). I may be freaking out a little. Comfort me? :-/

Anyway, while I'm on the subject, this'll be the Religion, Part 2 post I mentioned I was planning. (Here's a link to Part 1 in case you missed it.)

Part 1 led to an interesting (if somewhat heated) discussion with Zera regarding the nature of privilege. More specifically, I said:

you say "it's not like the rest of the world is going to make you stand up and ask you to fit in a labeled belief (or non-belief) system." which is great for you, but you're coming from a place of privilege. you can say you're Christian and everyone goes "oh, okay, me too." but without that sort of privilege that comes from knowing that the majority will assume your beliefs correctly, it becomes more important to be able to express them.

And she got all offended. (And this despite the fact that, as my therapist pointed out, I'd already said in the OP that being able to label/express/explain my beliefs was important to me!)

I tried to explain privilege to her --

"it's neutral. it's how society works. f.ex, I have white privilege. I researched that recently, and was blown away by all the things I'd never thought about. I have male privilege, and able-bodied privilege, and probably plenty of others I can't think of. everyone is privileged in some respect. the idea is to check your privilege and realize that some of what you think is How The World Works may only be how it works for people of Type X."

-- but it was late, and it didn't work, and... people, just watch this again and think for a minute: this is privilege. It isn't your fault, but for Pete's sake, check it please. (Google can help; I haven't the time, the space, or the links at-hand.)

All that said, some other interesting things I wanted to point you in the direction of (since, if you've read this far, it's safe to say you might care): Something to think about ("Lies Christians Tell" introduction); that video from Part 1, Lies Christians Tell #6, Lack of Belief = Assertion of Falsehood; and this blog post, Would Anything Change Your Mind?.

I'm too tired to share my thoughts on all those right now, except that I find them fascinating, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. (Let's just keep it all calm and civil, please [which I say only because, y'know, this is the Internet, after all].)

Off to go to sleep (and to continue reminding myself that my lack of belief is valid, my being visible is important, and my parents have had plenty of other cause to disown me and haven't yet! ;) -- because I don't want an ulcer, lol.).

ETA: Sorry, didn't notice the font went wonky with the block quotes; fixed now!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Don't worry, eventually they'll disown you. You just have to keep on trying!

That being said, I am torn between a thoughtful comment and just citing a whole bunch of scriptures for no reason.

[lonetread]

Lol. I know, right? ;)

[(Anonymous)]

sticky subject on all counts, really. Nothing to do with nothing, but I always feel like I'm swimming in shark infested waters with these kinds of posts! Like one wrong thing and everyone's going to be pointing and saying YOU FAIL SO HARD! Which, yeah, on a given day, I do. But still.

(not related to links, since my comp is wonky but just general ideas/thoughts, hope you don't mind)

So, religion. Hmm, let's see (and considering LJ ate my other comment here it goes again), how about a bit of background? I was raised in a baptist christian house. I always believed in god and jesus, and besides the advice of "be a good person" I never saw the need for all the other trappings of religion. Which put me on the fringe from the tender age of...six, but hey ;)

As it stands now, I don't know about god and I believe jesus was SOMEONE, just not sure who that someone really was. But I'm comfortable with that, there's no angst associated with it, for me. If god's there, he/she/it will be happy knowing his/her/its peeps are doing the right thing, if he/she/it's not there, well, I was still a good samaritan and that's alright by me, because I don't need a heaven as a reward and I don't need a hell as an incentive to do the right thing (actually another form of consciousness after death? the thought leaves me kinda tired, really).

As for privilege, well, I'm white, female, and have very mild form of CP. Of course, in this nice mixed bag race would be the dominant factor, and I'm well aware of the advantage that sort of "status" brings me, especially as I was raised in a prejudiced household. Being female and mildly handicapped serves as a flipside, and maybe that's why I'm so adamant about acknowledging where I'm blind, where I might be wrong, because I know I have more than my fair share of those moments, and in one form or another I know exactly what they can do to someone else.

Change - IT IS GOOD :DDDDD

okay, so my long ass comment. How'd I do?

[dime-for-12.livejournal.com]

and, yeah, that was me /o\

[lonetread]

I always feel like I'm swimming in shark infested waters with these kinds of posts! Like one wrong thing and everyone's going to be pointing and saying YOU FAIL SO HARD!

Given the content of this post, I can see why! I convince Zera to leave a comment, she leaves a perfectly nice, if flawed, comment, and I pick out one of the two things that upset me and write a whole LJ post on it? How big of a jerk am I? Sigh. But it's OK, at least you don't fail! :D

and considering LJ ate my other comment here it goes again

Must be something about these posts. ;) Both of them, Firefox crashed as I was writing them (admittedly, I have who-knows-how-many tabs open).

I like your thoughts on God. Well said.

And your thoughts on privilege are fascinating and deserve pondering. Will ponder when I'm not late for class. *g*

IT IS INDEED. :D

[taylor-serenil.livejournal.com]

I believe in God, but I think a lot of organized religion is flawed. One relatively obvious example: women do a lot of the work in the Catholic church, but they can't be priests. Personally, I think requiring priests to be celibate is also something of a flaw.

(I'm nominally Lutheran, and have attended Metropolitan Community Church as well, which I liked a lot except that it was two hours long and my attention span isn't that good. And I will forever remember the Baptist service I went to while my mind was messed up from Topamax and the pastor kept ranting about adulteresses and didn't say a damn thing about guys who cheat, as well as saying some highly homophobic remarks).

My personal belief on the sexuality issue is that God cares a whole lot more about how you treat the person (or people) you're with than that person/people's gender.

I'm white, so I get white privilege. I'm cis female, so I don't get guy privilege, although I do get cis. I'm technically disabled, although I still (normally, if I'm not having obvious tremors) get able-bodied the vast majority of the time. I'm bi, but I'm not particularly obvious, so unless I kiss a girl in public or something, I get straight privilege. And I'm sure there's some I'm missing.